FiNETIK – Asia and Latin America – Market News Network

Asia and Latin America News Network focusing on Financial Markets, Energy, Environment, Commodity and Risk, Trading and Data Management

March 19, 2013 • 12:24 am 0

Outsourcing Reference Data Management: Cost Reduction and New Revenue Opportunities

The past 12 months has seen the emergence of new players offering Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services for Reference Data Management. These new arrivals expand the range of options available to financial institutions for addressing the challenges of regulatory compliance, operational cost reduction and scalability.

But BPO has other benefits, and innovative adopters have benefited from using the model to create new value-added services. By catering to clients’ data management needs, these players have been able to transform what’s traditionally been considered a cost centre into a new and significant source of revenue.

This paper – from AIM Software – explores this exciting new trend, and describes how an established financial institution took advantage of BPO to turn its enterprise data management initiative into a new source of revenue and business growth.

Download the White Paper Now to Find Out More

Source: A-Team, March 2013

Filed under: Corporate Action, Data Management, Data Vendor, Library, Market Data, Reference Data, Standards, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 12, 2013 • 2:48 am 0

SIX Financial Information and LUZ Engenharia Financeira in strategic cooperation in Brazil

Zurich, Switzerland – SIX Financial Information and LUZ Engenharia Financeira, the largest provider of risk management software and consulting services to buy- and sell-side institutions in Brazil, have established a strategic relationship to meet the growing need for broader and deeper international financial market data in Brazil.

As Brazil’s investment community increasingly turns to foreign markets to achieve superior returns, reliable, high quality pricing and reference data becomes more important every day. SIX Financial Information, a leading provider of global financial information since 1930, will fill that need for clients of LUZ Engenharia Financeira.

Edivar Vilela Queiroz, CEO of LUZ Engenharia Financeira commented, “While the Brazilian financial services community has been well served by local data providers, SIX Financial Information has the breadth and depth of global market data to support current needs as well as the capacity to grow as our local market evolves.” He continued, “And as the world’s markets become ever more connected and transparent, this is an important differentiator that will allow seamless growth into offshore markets.”

“As Brazil becomes a major force in the global financial markets, foreign investors will undoubtedly continue their steadily increasing interest in the Brazilian markets and help foster even more growth,” said Barry Raskin, Managing Director for SIX Financial Information USA. “We are excited to extend our focus to this vibrant market, and very pleased that LUZ-EF has given us their stamp of approval through this strategic partnership.”

On Wednesday, March 13 2013, SIX Financial Information and LUZ-EF will jointly host a client event in São Paulo where they will formally announce their partnership and describe the international equity and options pricing and reference data available through the LUZ-EF platform.

Source: SIX Financial Information, 12.03.2012

Filed under: Brazil, Data Management, Data Vendor, Reference Data, , , , , , , ,

January 30, 2013 • 1:41 am 0

Falcon Private Bank goes live with the B-Source Wealthmanagment Outsource Solution

B-Source successfully migrated Falcon Private Bank with its global locations to the B-Source Master at the beginning of the year. This will enable the established Swiss private bank to further optimize its processes and concentrate on its strategic expansion.

The successful migration of Falcon Private Bank to the B-Source Master means another Swiss financial institution has put its faith in B-Source’s reliable and innovative banking solution. Falcon Private Bank opted to outsource the operation of its banking platform and migrate it to the B-Source Master, an Avaloq-based banking application landscape using the ASP (application service provisioning) model. All three banking locations in Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore were migrated. The work was successfully completed within 15 months, a short period given the differing regional legal regulations. Orbium, a long-standing partner of B-Source, also played a decisive role in the successful project implementation.

By outsourcing its banking platform, Falcon Private Bank has a powerful, efficient and scalable banking solution that will allow it to focus on its strategic expansion in emerging markets. The bank chose B-Source in part due to its extensive expertise and long-standing experience not only in Switzerland but also with locations in other countries.

“The main reason behind our decision was B-Source’s experience in international outsourcing business, as we wanted to migrate several locations to the new banking system at the same time,” explains Tobias Unger, COO of Falcon Private Bank. “The migration of our banking platform to the B-Source Master creates the basis for optimal fulfilment both of our clients’ growing demands for higher quality service and of new regulatory requirements, and for pressing ahead with our global strategy and direction,” adds Unger.

“The migration of Falcon Private Bank to the B-Source Master is a further success for us, and we are proud to count another renowned first-class Swiss private bank among our clients in the shape of Falcon Private Bank. B-Source’s long-standing experience with international private banks enabled us to successfully implement this challenging project in a very short time and to a high level of quality,” says Markus Gröninger, CEO of B-Source AG.

Source: B-Source, 30.01.2013

Filed under: Data Management, News, , , , , , , , ,

November 7, 2012 • 10:43 pm 0

Capco Proposes the Creation of a Data Culture to Advance Data Management RDR

Financial firms are falling short on data management issues such as calculating the true cost of data, identifying the operational cost savings of improved data management and embracing social media data, but according to research by consultancy Capco, these issues can be resolved with a cross-organisational and practical approach to data management and the development of a data culture.

The business and technology consultancy’s report – ‘Why and how should you stop being an organisation that manages data and become a data management organisation’ – is based on interviews with towards 100 senior executives at European financial institutions. It considers the many approaches to data management across the industry and within individual enterprises, as well as the need to rethink data management. It states: “There is one certainty: data and its effective management can no longer be ignored.”

The report suggests an effective data management culture will include agreed best practices that are known to a whole organisation and leadership provided by a chief data officer (CDO) with a voice at board level and control of data management strategy and operational implementation.

For details on the report click here

Turning the situation around and attaching practical solutions to the data management vision of an all-encompassing data culture, Capco lists regulatory compliance, risk management, revenue increase, innovation and cost reduction as operational areas where good data management can have a measurable and positive effect on profit and loss.

Setting out how an organisation can create an effective data culture, Capco notes the need to change from being an organisation that is obliged to do a certain amount of data management, to a mandated and empowered data management organisation in which data has ongoing recognition as a key primary source. The report concludes: “Every organisation has the potential, as well as the need, to become a true data management organisation. However, the journey needs to begin now.”

Source: Reference Data Review, 24.10.2012

Filed under: Corporate Action, Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, Reference Data, Standards, , , , , , , , , , ,

November 3, 2012 • 10:12 pm 0

Reference Data: Current Solutions Lacking, Despite Foundational Nature of Reference Data RDR

Reference data management (RDM) is a foundational element of financial enterprises, yet the collection of solutions used to manage reference data in most firms is not satisfactory, according to a report published this week.

The report – Reference Data Management: Unlocking Operational Efficiencies, published by Tabb Group in conjunction with data integration specialist Informatica – describes current sentiment around RDM. It looks at development through four generations of solutions, details the obstacles to RDM success and sets out how firms at different levels of RDM adoption can move forward towards the holy grail of centralised RMD coupled to consistent reference data processing.

Despite huge investments in RDM over the past decade, research carried out among 20 firms – 25% in Europe, 75% in the US, 50% on the buy side and 50% on the sell side – in April 2012 found 86% of respondents dissatisfied with their RDM capabilities. Of these, 48% are being driven to improvement for reasons related to resource optimisation and outcomes, while 35% are responding to specific catalysts such as compliance.

For details on the report click here.

Recommending how to navigate the road ahead, the study suggests firms committed to bolstering existing suites of RDM solutions should focus on wrapping current solutions with technology that enables a consistent enterprise data governance process, while those yet to make a significant commitment to an RDM solution should seek solutions that manage multiple reference data domains in a consistent and integrated enterprise framework.

The report concludes: “There can be no glory without doing the hard work first. Data fluency, a critical precursor to data consumability, simply means that data flows more easily, which in turn means that end users must be able to find it. And, finding data requires meticulous attention to standards, labels and other metadata, however imperfect they may be now or in the future. That way, no matter how big or complex the data gets, end users will have a much better shot at harvesting value from it.”

Source: Reference Data Review, 19.10.2012

Filed under: Data Management, Reference Data, , , , , , , ,

September 24, 2012 • 11:54 pm 0

Symbology: EDI’s Corporate Actions Service Adopts Bloomberg Open Symbology

Free-use Data Tagging System Reduces Costs and Risks in Trading

Exchange Data International (EDI), a premier back office financial data provider, today announced it adopted Bloomberg’s Global Securities Identifiers (‘BBGID’) to name and track all equities securities in its Worldwide Corporate Actions service.

EDI is the latest financial data provider to adopt Bloomberg’s Open Symbology (BSYM), an open and free-use system for naming global securities across all asset classes with a BBGID, a 12 digit alpha-numeric identifier for financial instruments. EDI has implemented BBGID numbers in its equities reference, pricing and corporate actions data feeds. Its Worldwide Corporate Actions service provides detailed information on 50 corporate action event types affecting equities listed on 160 exchanges.

“EDI decided to integrate Bloomberg’s Open Symbology, as it is easily accessible and has no license fee or restrictions on usage,” said Jonathan Bloch, the Chief Executive Officer of EDI. “Bloomberg’s Symbology also advances straight-through processing of equity orders, which aids reporting and compliance management.”

Peter Warms, Global Head of Bloomberg Open Symbology, said, “Existing identifiers that change due to underlying corporate actions introduce inefficiencies, increase costs and add complexity to the data management process. Bloomberg and EDI recognise the importance of comprehensive, open and unchanging identifiers, like the BBGID, in enabling customers to track unique securities consistently and to process corporate action data seamlessly. As BSYM grows in adoption, interoperability across market systems and software using BSYM will improve steadily and reduce operational costs.”

Source: Bobsguide, 24.09.2012

Filed under: Corporate Action, Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, Reference Data, Standards, , , , , , , , , , ,

June 7, 2012 • 8:02 am 0

NYSE Data Services to deliver all Market Data via Web Services

NYSE Technologies, the commercial technology division of NYSE Euronext, and Xignite Inc., provider of web-based market data services, have announced their agreement to launch a new service providing access to real-time, historical, and reference market data for all NYSE Euronext markets via the Internet. In extending the benefits offered by the NYSE Technologies Capital Markets Community platform introduced in 2011, NYSE Technologies Market Data Web Services is geared towards non-latency sensitive clients and those in remote locations. The first phase offers real-time retail reference pricing for NYSE, NYSE MKT, and NYSE Arca markets.

NYSE Technologies Market Data Web Services, which is powered by XigniteOnDemand, allows clients the flexibility to access only the content that they need for a wide range of purposes from developing trading solutions for financial web portals to enabling Internet-powered devices. The user interface offers data services from across NYSE Technologies’ full portfolio of market data assets. The second phase scheduled for the third quarter of 2012 will offer NYSE Bonds data, NYSE Liffe Level 1 and Level 2 data, and NYSE and NYSE MKT Order Imbalances.

“Our goal is to connect data consumers directly to our content in multiple ways- via collocation at our Liquidity Centers, direct connection to our SFTI network and now via the web,” said Jennifer Nayar, Head of Global Data Products, NYSE Technologies. “We are pleased to partner with Xignite to address the demand for internet-based delivery of market data and as a result, further extend our client-base to non-latency sensitive and remote clients.”

Using a standard Internet connection, users can access NYSE Euronext market data and customize it according to their specific trading needs. Customers anywhere around the world, including those in remote locations, are able to access the data they need and develop to it with ease for fast time-to-market.

“The delivery of market data content via websites and mobile devices continues to build momentum and we are excited to leverage these applications to help increase access to NYSE Euronext data,” said Stephane Dubois, Xignite’s CEO and founder. “Both NYSE Technologies and Xignite have demonstrated a strong commitment to the electronic delivery of market data and the ability to serve today’s growing, diverse array of applications, especially the mobile market.”

The initiative with Xignite complements NYSE Technologies’ enterprise cloud strategy. NYSE Technologies Capital Markets Community Platform enables a range of industry firms and registered market participants to purchase computing power as needed, freeing them to focus on core business strategy rather than complicated IT infrastructure. NYSE Technologies Market Data Web Services provides clients with another market data delivery option for NYSE Euronext content, supporting current access methods offered by NYSE Technologies where direct connect clients and SuperFeed clients have the choice of collocating in NYSE Technologies’ Liquidity Center or connecting to its Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure® (SFTI) network.

Source: NYSE Technologies, 06.06.2012

Filed under: Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, Trading Technology, , , , , , , , , ,

April 24, 2012 • 2:00 pm 0

Market Data Technology to Hit $3.6B in 2012

Demand for market data acceleration is driving the global investment in sell-side, market-data distribution technology in 2012 to $3.6 billion, according to a report released by the Tabb Group.

The report, Market Data Acceleration: More than Just Speed, also predicts 4.5% compound annual growth in these investments for the next three years based on expected growth in FX, Derivatives and Commodities as well as movement by Asian markets towards automation.

The largest segment of this investment, 73%, will come from Europe and North America, but according to Tabb Group, there’s considerable growth potential from the Asian markets.

Moreover, while the equities markets are matured from a growth perspective, driving 45% of the global spend, a strong percentage of growth will come from over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, FX and commodities.

According to the report, market data is an area where performance can play a crucial role for a host of trading activities. Obtaining, decoding and utilizing market data in a timely and efficient manner are no longer the purview of the ultra-low-latency firms; everyone involved needs to be able to get at market data in as timely a fashion as possible.

“This is not to say that everyone needs to be at the ‘tip of the spear’; however, it does mean that anyone who is actively involved in trading needs to be moving in that direction,” said the report.

However, according to the research firm, firms are struggling with conflicting pressures of the “need for speed” in comparison to the “need to save,” as they try reconcile price with performance.

“Market participants need to ensure that their investment in speed gets them more than just a solitary solution for a single platform,” said Tabb partner and report writer Alexander Tabb in a statement.

Different firms, according to Tabb, have different strategies, thus different needs. Whether a firm is a high frequency trader, an institutional market maker, or an algo-trading desk, the challenge is placing speed into its proper context within the accelerated market data equation.

“Due to the democratization of speed, it’s essential for every buyer to remember to factor in total cost of ownership, price versus performance, operational flexibility, control, scalability and time-to-market,” says the report.

Source: Securities Technology Monitor. 23.04.2012

Filed under: Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, , , , , , , , , , ,

March 8, 2012 • 10:26 am 0

White Paper: LEI Readiness – Instant Integration

White Paper: LEI Readiness – Instant Integration with Alacra Concordance

The idea of an LEI pre-dates the 2008 financial crisis by several decades. The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) had advocated an LEI (at one time called the IBEI – International Business Entity Identifier) for many years, but was unable to pinpoint an organization ready to build and maintain such a directory. For many securities industry participants, existing identifiers, such as the Bank Identifier Code (BIC), met most of the market’s needs.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers revealed the problems firms faced in readily identifying their counterparty exposure. With critical data residing in multiple, unconnected silos, many firms had no way to calculate their counterparty risk across front, middle, and back office systems. This damaged reputations, led to tremendous financial losses, unleashed law suits, and brought into focus the dire need for a system to uniquely identify entities.

Download the Free White Paper Now

Source: A-TEAM, 08.03.2012

Filed under: Data Management, Data Vendor, Library, Market Data, Reference Data, Standards, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 29, 2012 • 12:49 pm 0

Bloomberg unveils its NEXT terminal

On its 30th anniversary Bloomberg officially launched an updated $100 million version of its core terminal yesterday in London and New York simultaneously. The NEXT platform of the Bloomberg Professional Service is intended to give traders and financial services end users faster, deeper insights into the markets and to enable the market data terminal to answer questions more intuitively in future, not just present research and data, via an enhanced ‘natural language’ search function and ‘give me the answer’ front-end tool.

According to Tom Secunda, the co-founder and vice chairman of Bloomberg speaking at the launch, “this is an evolutionary step” that helps order increasingly complex markets and aids productivity, while continuing the company’s mission to deliver on “Mike Bloomberg’s famous three-legged stool, consisting of news, data and analytics”. The NEXT platform consolidates and crucially integrates these feeds better than ever before believes the company, giving users easier access to the information that exists on the terminal and enhancing the customer experience.  “For example, you can ask what was US CPI in 2000 …and bang, there is the answer.” Users can then drill down into the answer for further research, added Jean-Paul Zammitt, global head of core product development at Bloomberg, pointing out that this is the key presentational change in the NEXT platform, requiring every help screen and back end process to be rewritten and updated.

Under development for the last two years, Bloomberg asserts that 3,000 technologists were involved in the overhaul of its core terminal, which is used by traders, analysts and even some large multinational corporate treasuries looking to hedge their foreign exchange exposure. A select group of existing clients, including OCBC Bank, Credit Agricole CIB, and Glenhill Capital were involved in the development phrase, allowing Bloomberg to review common keystrokes and commands across an array of functions in order to improve the customer experience.

More than 100,000 clients have already converted to Bloomberg NEXT at no extra cost in the £20,000 per year outlay since its ‘soft launch’ at the end of last year, with less than 1% converting back to their old terminal. The company said that two thirds of them are using the NEXT platform more than their old terminal and that it wants to convert all of its 313,000 subscriber base for the Bloomberg Professional Service by the end of this year.

“Bloomberg NEXT saves me time by discovering functions and data more quickly,” said Seth Hoenig, head trader at one of the ‘soft launch’ development partners, Glenhill Capital. “The new help menus enable users to find the answer that they need fast. Stumbling upon the hidden gems within Bloomberg has always been revelatory; now it’s easier.”

According to Lars Hansen, senior portfolio manager at Denmark’s DIP, the Danish Pension Fund for Engineers: “Bloomberg NEXT is a major step forward. It is much more intuitive – you can see multiple pieces of information on one screen, which lets you see new interrelationships.”

Bloomberg highlighted what it sees as three key improvements in its updated terminal:

• Better discoverability: Bloomberg NEXT’s new discoverability features allow users to get quick, direct answers to their queries as well as pull together a wide variety of related details such as companies, research and charts. A more powerful search engine means users can type just a few words and go directly to the desired securities, functions, people and news. The streamlined menu listing puts the most relevant information and topics right up front.

• More uniformity: Every screen of the Bloomberg Professional Service has been redesigned to provide a common look and feel. This consistent interface across all asset classes, from FX to commodities and fixed income, and across all functions should allow expert users and generalists alike to more efficiently navigate often-used functions and discover new ones. An educational overview of each market segment for novices is also included in the update.

• Intuitive workflow: The functionality of the Bloomberg Professional service has been re-engineered so that a user should be able to quickly and seamlessly navigate through the series of questions and answers essential to making smart market decisions. The new workflow, with user prompts, in Bloomberg NEXT is intended to allow expert users to drill deeper into the data and to let occasional users discover new functions.

“The complexity and interconnectedness of the global financial marketplace has grown significantly. Business and financial professionals need to synthesize astounding amounts of information to make intelligent investment decisions,” explained co-founder, Tom Secunda. The firm is still a big believer in a single product approach, however, he stressed at the official launch of NEXT but this, “obviously gives us challenges as markets get more and more complex.”

NEXT is Bloomberg’s response. “The pace of change in financial markets will only accelerate and with it the need for more information,” added Secunda, before concluding that he believes, “Bloomberg is now positioned to quickly answer those evolving questions and ensure that our clients will always have the leading edge in making investment decisions.”

News Analysis 

Bloomberg’s new NEXT platform will go head-to-head against Thomson Reuters in the market data sector, which is increasing in value as financial markets get more and more complex and new post-crash regulations place new information demands upon market participants. Both companies are running neck and neck in terms of market data share, with estimates of 30% for each at present.

One terminal is proprietary, of course, with Bloomberg maintaining its closed market data platform in its NEXT iteration, while Thomson Reuters is now following an open access model with its Eikon terminal, allowing users to add their own data and applications. The relative failure of Thomson Reuters Eikon platform, which has sold only tens of thousands of units since launch rather than the hoped for hundreds of thousands, is what prompted the open access model from Thomson Reuters, although it does of course take time to build up a following. It will be interesting to see if Thomson Reuters move allows the firm to win back lost market data share or if Bloomberg’s updated terminal can keep it on its recent upward curve. The former is still benefiting from the 2008 merger that united Thompson Financial with Reuters, giving it synergies in the data collection and delivery areas, but the competition between the two has just hotted up.

Source: Bobsguide, 28.02.2012

Filed under: Corporate Action, Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, News, Reference Data, , , , , ,

February 10, 2012 • 9:54 am 0

Thomson Reuters Goes Live with Delta Data Factory

First Derivatives plc ,  is pleased to announce that Thomson Reuters (TR) pricing and reference data group (P&RDG) has selected and implemented FD’s Delta Data Factory (DDF) for use internally as a component in its multi-faceted forward-thinking data delivery strategy. This announcement follows FD’s recent launch of DDF, a hosted data factory service for reference data and also the formation of a dedicated data management division.

Thomson Reuters P&RDG client-centric focus and innovation approach makes use of Delta Data Factory as one element in a strategy to rapidly meet the formatting and workflow requirements of its clients. TR selected DDF as a managed service “data formatting factory” to assist in its strategy to offer TR clients speedy integration and adoption of reference and pricing data.

According to Tim Rice, MD of Global Pricing and Reference Data, “we selected FD’s Delta Data Factory because of the flexibility and rapid implementation speed, powerful data transformation engine, data knowledgeable team, reliable hosted infrastructure and global support model. Within TR’s data strategy, FD’s independence as a strong third party service provider supports and accelerates our plans allowing clients to leverage our data quickly. We’re now successfully live with a number of clients”.

For consumers of TR data, whether it be client-direct or third party application vendors, FD’s Delta Data Factory transforms the data into rapidly consumable formats for TR clients, third party applications partners, security master environments or EDM platform formats.

Dale Richards, President of FD US and Global Head of Data Management at FD commented, “We are very pleased to have TR as a client of DDF. The service is a powerful new model for the data industry and TR implementing and going live is a terrific endorsement of the capabilities”.

DDF is a managed service support model that includes software, expert data staff, support level management, infrastructure, customization tools, hosting and management. FD provides the factory working with clients to implement the best strategy. FD has been hosting and operating systems on behalf of clients for 15 years with ISO27001/SAS70 compliant operating centers.

In addition to data vendors and publishers, financial institutions use DDF to outsource the processing and normalization of multiple in-bound reference data sources into EDM or proprietary security master environments. FD’s also uses DDF to produce customized out-bound formats for their internal clients. Benefits include cost savings and decreased project timeframes.

Source: Bobsguide, 10.02.2012

Filed under: Corporate Action, Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, Reference Data, , , , , , ,

February 2, 2012 • 1:39 am 0

Bloomberg Opens its Data Distribution Technology

Open Market Data Initiative Will Spur Innovation & Industry Collaboration

Bloomberg is opening its market data interfaces for use by technology professionals globally, without cost or restriction, the company announced today. Bloomberg’s application programming interface, known as BLPAPI, is used daily by more than 100,000 professionals across the financial services industry and is now publicly available under a free-use license.

BLPAPI powers global market data distribution to desktops, workgroups and enterprise applications. In addition to Bloomberg Professional service subscribers, non-Bloomberg customers, vendors and software developers can now use BLPAPI as an alternative to proprietary technologies for market data distribution. This is Bloomberg’s latest move in support of its Open Market Data Initiative – an ongoing effort to embrace and promote open solutions for the financial services industry.

“Today’s global financial marketplace depends on the free flow of timely and accurate market information,” said Tom Secunda, Founding Partner and Global Head of Bloomberg’s Financial Products and Services division. “By embracing open technologies for market data distribution, we remove layers of expense, erase restrictive license agreements and enable innovation.”

“We intend to evolve BLPAPI into an open standard with the help of an independent committee charged with managing the future development and stability of a truly open market data interface,” said Shawn Edwards, Chief Technology Officer of Bloomberg LP. “Open technologies allow our customers, partners, and others to direct resources towards developing innovative services instead of coping with rigid technologies.”

Bloomberg’s open API follows the release of Bloomberg’s Open Symbology (BSYM), a system to identify securities across all global asset classes. BSYM is an alternative to proprietary security identifiers that has been adopted by leading global securities exchanges and financial services organizations.

The BLPAPI interface works with a comprehensive set of programming languages and operating systems, including Java, C, C++, .NET, COM and Perl. Other benefits of using Bloomberg’s API include:

• A comprehensive technical definition of a market data interface that includes publish/subscribe, request/response, all built on a flexible service-oriented design,

• An MIT-style license that allows users to copy and use BLPAPI interfaces for use with any market data service, applications or adapter technology,

• A simple and intuitive interface technology that is suitable for high volume and low latency applications.

* Bloomberg is offering its programming interface (BLPAPI) under a free-use agreement. This does not apply to any content.

Source:Bob´s Guide, 01.02.2012

Filed under: Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, , , , , , , , ,

February 1, 2012 • 11:32 am 0

A-TEAM launches Big Data 4 Finance

 A-Team Group launched today – BigDataForFinance.com where it will cover the emerging science of big data and how it relates to financial markets applications – such as analysis of time series pricing, management of reference data and determination of sentiment from news archives.  A-Team will also cover the evolving technology infrastructure that underpins big data applications, from storage to analytics and business intelligence.

A-TEAM: Let’s start by addressing a working definition for big data, as we see it.  Wikipedia has a pretty good starter: “Datasets that grow so large that they become awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools.”

But here’s our improvement on that: “Datasets whose characteristics – size, data type and frequency – are beyond efficient processing, storage and extraction by traditional database management tools.”

And let’s be clear, the focus is as much on the analysis of data to derive actionable business information as it is on handling different data types and high frequency updates.

Make sure that you don’t miss news and contributions that could be valuable.  Be sure to sign up for the weekly email update here.

Source: A-TEAM, 18.01.2012

Filed under: Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, Reference Data, Risk Management, , , , , , , , , ,

January 26, 2012 • 12:40 am 0

Deutsche Börse launches algo news feed in Brazil

Availability in Sao Paulo data center marks expansion of “AlphaFlash” into Latin America.

Deutsche Börse – Market Data & Analytics has launched “AlphaFlash”, its algorithmic news feed, in a data center in Sao Paulo. The feed is available now in Brazil, marking AlphaFlash’s official expansion into South America.
AlphaFlash is hosted at a data center at a local exchange in Sao Paulo.

“Brazil is considered the leader in algorithmic and high frequency trading in Latin America. As this growing market continues to develop, we see greater demand from local quant traders, hedge funds and market participants to consume machine-readable news quickly and efficiently. The new data center allows customers to access AlphaFlash as fast as possible—right on the spot in Brazil, so they can swiftly execute their automated trades,” said Georg Gross, Head of Front Office Data & Analytics at Deutsche Börse.

Launched in April 2010, AlphaFlash delivers low latency, machine-readable economic indicators and corporate news. Subscribers can choose among several data packages, e.g. U.S., Canadian, European or Asia-Pacific economic indicators, U.S. and Global Treasury Auctions, the Chicago PMI as well as the Corporate News Germany feed. AlphaFlash is available in a number of data centers across the globe, including Chicago, Secaucus (New Jersey), Washington D.C., Sao Paulo, Frankfurt, London, Sydney, Tokyo and Singapore.

Source: Deutsche Börse, 25.01.2012

Filed under: Brazil, Data Management, Latin America, Market Data, News, Reference Data, , , , , ,

October 26, 2011 • 11:40 pm 0

Special Report: Evaluated Pricing Oct 2011 – A-TEAM

Valuations and pricing teams are facing a much higher degree of scrutiny from both the regulatory community and the investor community in the glare of the post-crisis data transparency spotlight. Fair value price transparency requirements and the gradual move towards a more harmonised accounting standards environment is set within the context of the whole debate about data quality across the financial services business, in light of incoming regulations such as Basel III and the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD). Whether it is related to risk management, pricing, trading or reporting, firms need to be able to stand behind their numbers.

The goal of the AIFMD is to create a level playing field and set basic standards for the operation of alternative investment funds in Europe via new reporting and governance requirements. On the pricing and valuations side of things, firms must establish what the directive calls “appropriate and consistent” procedures to allow for the independent valuation of a fund’s assets. In order to achieve this, the valuation must either be performed by an independent third party or by the asset manager, as long as there is functional separation between the pricing and portfolio management functions.

Download free report here

Source: A-Team, 12.10.2011

Filed under: Data Management, Data Vendor, Market Data, Reference Data, Standards, , , , , , , , , , ,

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 53 other followers